The Wheel Turns from Farroad

A Reshi wheel-song for setting out from Farroad Waystead, keeping the road's first hard lesson in its opening line: Silkstrand salt takes the first mile.

[sung while the lead driver walks the first turn beside the left wheel; the crew answers the indented lines] The salt takes the first mile. Let it take the sweat, not the water. The glare takes the road from the eye. Trust the wheel-rut. Trust the driver. Farroad shuts no gate behind us. A kept road runs both ways. The deep well gives what we can carry. Count the skins. Count them again. Past the yard, the white flats lie. Salt in the axle, salt in the seam, Salt on the tongue of the one who sings. Grease at dusk. Brush before sleep. The scarp stands brown beyond the shine. Keep it left until the noon bell. A silk flag lies. A stone does not. Buy cloth in market, take bearings from stone. If the front wheel sinks, unload forward. If the rear wheel sinks, unload back. If all four sink, stop naming fools And put every shoulder to the frame. One cart stuck is one caravan stopped. Longwater wind may cool the face. It does not fill a waterskin. Dune shade may look like rain. It does not fill a waterskin. A friend may praise your careful stores. Make the friend show theirs. At the last salt post, turn and look. Farroad is low behind the heat. The road ahead has twenty names, But every name begins back there. The wheel goes out. The wheel comes home. The salt takes the first mile. We keep the miles that follow. The road asks weight from every wheel. We pay together, or we do not pass.

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